Advances in technology have allowed for increasingly complex features to be integrated into mobile terminals. Features such as video cameras, location information systems, compasses, gyroscopes, and accelerometers are capable of leveraging the communication capabilities of mobile terminals such as cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and smartphones to provide users with unprecedented levels of information. One such way of providing information to a user is via the use of an augmented reality (AR) display. Such displays typically receive and display image data from an image capture device or a video capture device (e.g., a video camera coupled to the mobile terminal) and modify or overlay the image data to impart additional information to the user. For example, an AR display might use compass readings, an internal gyroscope, and an image of a night sky to overlay the night sky with the names of particular constellations. Another AR display might overlay a user's travel route to a destination over a view of a city street to direct the user.
One use of AR displays provides information about nearby points of interest (POIs) to a user by overlaying icons representing the points of interest on a video display of the environment. These points of interest are typically displayed on the screen as graphical objects projected by a processor. Efficient display of these points of interest requires careful placement of objects to minimize screen clutter while still presenting the graphical objects in an intuitive manner that allows for ease of interaction.